October and still warm!

I was just realizing that we've had an absolutely glorious week of sunshine! How surprising is that for October? Very! Sure, the mornings are a bit brisk, and the wind continues to blow, but it's been sunny and almost balmy otherwise. I wonder (and I hope I'm not jinxing anything by mentioning this) if there's going to be snow for Halloween. :P

Updates for our little household...

We're still waiting for the replacement windows for the master bedroom. Jeldwen has been by with one replacement set, but they were scratched as well. Waiting seems to take forever. I think it's been about 3 weeks. Perhaps it's time to phone and nag them.

The new hot tub cover has been delivered and installed. It's much lighter than the original. I'm almost glad that the window installers dropped the pane of glass through it. Nice to not have to wrestle the weight of the lid up and over with one hand while holding a White Russian in the other hand.

A new septic tank has been installed. The old one was kinda soft after being used for 20-ish years. The new one is also steel, but has thicker walls and should last longer. Now all I need to do is find somebody who will deliver a load of sod that can be placed over the dirty soil that's exposed in the yard. I'm not putting the dog out there until it's done, nor am I planning to sit in the hot tub with the aroma upwind of us. No, it's not horrible! But the thought of it... Ewwww!

The old septic tank looks like some kind of abstract sculpture!

Hurricane Igor has been and gone. No damage other than that little maple tree I mentioned. The only long-term memory for us is going to be the addition of a little brother for Niki. Since the little thing was born during the hurricane, we've decided to call him Igor. He's a tri-coloured Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. (Niki is a black and tan version) We're expecting to fetch him from Freshwater, near Placentia around the last part of November. That's about a 1 1/2 hour drive from Torbay. The breeder is sending us updated photos. He's so cute!

Igor

The drawing course is proceeding well. I'm bouncing back and forth between graphite and coloured pencil. I did one painting of a cat, but it's nowhere near done yet. I'm doing a lot of research into art techniques for realism. I'd like to get the hair to look as realistic as possible. Not sure if I'll get there anytime soon, but I'm going to keep plugging away at it! Okay, okay... it's fun and I'm enjoying it, even though it's not easy!

Moe

Sean is nearly done the first part of his Construction Electrician course at Academy Canada. Soon he will be looking for a work-term position, and then an apprenticeship! His marks have been terrific and he seems to be liking the work. :D

Kyle is going to be moving out this year. It's not an easy step for him, but he seems to be looking forward to parts of it. He'll be looking for a room mate, as it's easier on the pocketbook. He'll be 23 this December. Dana says that we shouldn't give him pots and pans as his birthday or Christmas presents. ;)

Still working on the painting of Lucky. Colour changing to beige from grayscale.

Did I mention that I got over my Ikea envy? Dana got this lovely set of stuff for her little apartment in Winnipeg and I drooled for months over the way the whole thing worked out. I finally resolved my little envy problem by getting some Ikea for our house. A 3-some of book cases. It arrived while Dana was here for her Newfoundland visit, so she helped assemble it. I LOVE it! The shelves aren't full yet. I'm trying to be discriminating in what I add to the shelves... J.R. Ward, James Rollins, Sherrilyn Kenyon, and Laurell K. Hamilton, to name a few. Yoga and Judo books, Med texts, How-to books for Mac and Plumbing, a few biographies...

Just adding a note of weirdness. I tried to post a photo of the bookshelf, had it labeled "Ikea" and it was rejected. Tried again, after re-naming it "new bookshelf" and it was still rejected. "Server Rejected" Don't know why. Any ideas?

Well, time to mosey along and get back to my drawing. Enough with the computer for now.
Cheers!